No Names and Doers in A Wild Sheep Chase

When taken a face value A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami has nothing to do with traditional western assumptions of storytelling, much less those of the often formulaic Horror genre. The universe presented throughout the story seems to coil in on itself, spinning an ever-tighter cocoon of absurdities. As such it’s easy to loose oneself in Murakami’s flourishes and tangents and lose focus on the larger picture. When taken in from a distance that twisted cocoon actually takes on a clear point of view that both replicates and repudiates elements of western storytelling and comments on post-war Japanese culture. 

To say that the unnamed protagonist of A Wild Sheep Chase is a reluctant hero, would be to reconfigure the definition of ‘hero’ and stretch ‘reluctant’ to its breaking point. There is no easy term for the protagonist, he is not an anti-hero, he is not exactly an everyman, nor is he exactly an outsider, he works in advertising. He just is. He is really more of a force, a kind of Zen monk of mediocrity, a physical manifestation of post-modern boredom and vague existential unease.

If A Wild Sheep Chase has a call to action the protagonist takes the afternoon off and misses it, then takes a limo ride to casually accept it, then makes some follow up phone calls to his quest-giver to make small talk and finagle the details. There are some of the trappings of a classic detective story however lunch breaks, neurotic chain-smoking or ‘intercourse’ often overshadow them. What this all adds up to is the author’s exaltation the mundane.

Mild Spoilers Ahead

The horror genre elements are introduced when Murakami pits the ‘No Names’ against ‘The Doers’ in society. ‘The Doers’ (i.e. The Boss, or the unnamed Ainu youth) manipulate the ‘No Names’ and the supernatural spirit manipulates ‘The Doers’ in tern. The scourge infecting Murakami’s universe is not the all-purpose, moralistic ‘Evil’ so prevalent in western horror, it is the embodiment of rugged individualism. When the Doer has fulfilled their singular purpose at any cost, the sprit leaves them and they cease to be extraordinary. Without fail these former titans die as broken husks. In effect society scrambles to pick up the pieces. The disastrous consequences after the passing of the spirit seems to be a poignant metaphor for post-war, economic-boom (circa 1980s) Japan. Murakami is cautioning with narrative form against the western cult of the extraordinary or in a broader context, the threat of modernization.